Sometimes it can help us to cope with the many challenges of recovery to view it as a journey, an evolution, and a spiritual test. We’re being tested mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Our willpower, resilience and inner strength are all being tested. How well we succeed has a lot to do with how much […]
Category: Resource Center
The Harm in Being Pessimistic
One of the toxic thought patterns many of us find ourselves perpetuating is a thought addiction to pessimism, a negative outlook that causes us to feel dread rather than positive anticipation, anxiety rather than excitement. We have a pervasive focus on what might go wrong as opposed to what could go right. We think in […]
How Are We Consumed by Our Addictions?
When living with addiction, we are not only consumed by our substance abuse or dependence on certain behaviors, we are also consumed by all of the other accompanying factors that come along with these issues. We can find our lives becoming totally overpowered and overtaken by our addictions and how they affect our lives. Our […]
Thought Addictions
Sometimes our addictions don’t just involve substances, relationships and behaviors, they also involve our thought patterns. We develop toxic thought addictions where we’ve become so attached to certain thoughts that we can’t seem to let them go. As a result, we can develop obsessions and compulsions, intense anxiety and panic attacks, and depression. Our relentless […]
How Does Our Denial Compound Our Unwellness?
Throughout our struggles with addiction, we develop many coping mechanisms that we use in order to help ourselves cope with our pain but that are often means of trying to avoid it altogether. One of those coping mechanisms is denial. We can be in such deep denial about our substance abuse that we somehow manage […]
Examining Our Fears in Therapy
As we’re working to recover from our addictions and mental health issues, examining our fears with a therapist can help us greatly in our healing. We are sometimes so clouded by our toxic thought patterns and so distracted by our life circumstances that we have a hard time looking at what is driving us in […]
How Can We Take a Moral Inventory of Ourselves?
Addiction recovery programs such as the Twelve Step programs encourage us to take moral inventory of ourselves and our lives as part of our healing. The thought of this can be daunting and overwhelming for us, so much so that we can feel it’s impossible. We’ve been resisting this process for much of our lives […]
Reasons Why We Consider Suicide
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). For some of us, suicide feels like the only way out, the only solution to our deep, relentless inner pain. We feel it’s the only way to relieve the sadness, shame and fear we’re […]
Why Are We Afraid to Do the Work?
When suffering from addiction and mental illness, one of our biggest challenges is the resistance we feel to doing the work needed to recover. We postpone researching treatment centers. We stall on making an appointment with a therapist. We don’t go to support group meetings. We don’t feel ready to begin our recovery, and we […]
How Addiction Makes Us Feel
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Those of us who struggle with addiction have grown accustomed to feeling certain intense emotions. How does addiction make us feel? Our experiences with addiction are different for each of us, and we will […]